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Summary:
After returning from the factory, Canaan, Minoru, Yunyun, and Maria find a place to stay in a nearby town. Canaan is plagued with thoughts of how everyone has been hard on her and how so many have died, and Maria is the only one able to make her feel a little better. The next day, they find that the car has broken down, so Minoru decides that the girls should go ahead by train. A short time into the train ride though, the train stops, and Canaan hears gunfire and goes to investigate. She still remembers how Siam died on a train like this, and much to her surprise, she finds him sitting in one of the cars. In fact, all the people who have died so far are there, and they imply that it was Canaan who killed them all. One of them, Hakko, even appears to get a bullet to the head after blaming Canaan. Siam tells Canaan not to avert her eyes and rely on strange senses, but to instead fix her eyes on the truth.
The train then starts moving again, and Canaan realizes that the car is full of passengers who have been killed, triggering what Siam claims is Canaan’s fear of death. Back in the car that Maria and Yunyun are in, Alphard suddenly shows up and cites how Canaan is the strongest when she has a light to protect. Alphard wants Maria to be the detonator that awakens Canaan’s true power, and Maria agrees under the condition that she can take Alphard’s picture. Moments later, Canaan hears a gunshot and runs back to the car that Maria and Yunyun were in. When she gets there, she at first sees Siam, but once she remembers his advice, she sees Alphard instead. On the nearby seat is Maria’s blood, and the trail leads out of the back of the car.
As it turns out, Alphard had shot Maria in the side and had locked her and Yunyun in a car with some timed explosives nearby. This gives Canaan very little time to fight Alphard, but she has no choice but to do so. All during the fight, Alphard taunts Canaan with how she’s also Canaan and how she and Siam are the same. She also claims that Siam wouldn’t have died on that train if Canaan hadn’t appeared and that Canaan is like a baby with a very straightforward love. When she forces Canaan against a wall, she explains that she doesn’t want to kill Canaan – she wants to kill the despair that Canaan represents since that’s how Siam had felt towards those like her. As those two continue to fight, the timer on the bomb continues to tick down, and Maria decides to have Yunyun leave their car and detach it from the rest of the train.
Preview
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This was a good episode, but I had to watch it a couple of times to really understand Alphard’s motivations. I think part of that is because they kept switching between her and Maria’s scenes, so it was a little confusing to follow the first time through. Canaan seeing Siam and the others who have died was a little confusing as well, but I’ll chalk it up to her having the cross of a mental breakdown and an introspective moment. In any case, I still like that Alphard is a complex character who you can’t just call a villain, and this episode showed how it’s the despair that Canaan represents that she’s trying to overcome. I actually came out of this feeling that Siam is as much to blame for what’s happening as either of the girls thanks to how he influenced them.
Of course, the most consistently great thing about this series is the action, and P.A. Works once again wonderfully animated the battle in this episode. It was much longer and not nearly as one-sided as Canaan and Alphard’s previous encounter, and it was really just a lot of fun to see the fight choreography. Since the bomb hasn’t yet gone off, I’m hoping for some big bangs in next week’s finale too. I don’t think they’ll kill off Maria, but you never know…
it would be awesome to see Maria die, nice twist :p
Crap, this is getting intense =/
Don’t you remember? When Maria was used as a hostage to lure Canaan, the little fellow used a fake bomb in Maria, so my guess is that Alphard will do the same here.
We’ll have to wait one more week to know the truth.
Nice nice…
Man, Alphard looks so incredibly hot without her jacket on. Forget the damn episode, I could watch her fight in that getup all day.
Personally i like Alphard’s character and i dun find her a villain, rather i find that her past had force her to morph into what she is today.
As for Cannan, i find that she is still much naive and straight forward =)
Siam and those who turn them into what they are, are really to be blame .. hopefully no one else dies in the Grand Finale ~~~~
die maria, just die. please.
There’s no point in living for Canaan if Maria dies.
Seriously, so many shit happened to these two, let them have a happy ending.
Next week end already? Is there any plan for a 2nd season or can we say: “That’s it” ?
i think maris dead.
30 seconds is way too long. I would only have hopes for Maria dying if it was like 10 or something.
the only way to stop Siam legacy is to have both Cannan and Alphard die in a big boom. Sadly Mari ahas to live to expose/publish the whole story to stop the human experiments that was the trigger behind all this mess…. Just a thought
oh forgot another alternate ending… the three girls can hug and start kissing a la Needless pretty girl squad…. woot
Hmm i dnt think maria will die the whole “your job is to live” that alphard kept banging on about kind of does it for me i think she ment to live thru the whole thing,but then again cant see alphard dying either mayb just canaan either way i dnt think it’s gonna be a happy ending imo but who knows gief nxt episode nowz!
the bomb left <30sec wo..
i think the bomb fake 1 or maybe maria die 😀
Except Alphard isn’t ‘the little fellow’, who planted that ‘bomb’ on Maria just to lure Canaan to him. Alphard shot Maria beforehand, so she’s pretty damn serious in blowing her to smithereeens, despite her previous statements. Contradicting herself much? Also, since the carriage’s in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, even if the bomb’s a fake, no rescue’s abound, and Maria’s bleeding out in the carriage. I reckon she’s doomed, at least.
And if Canaan has ‘no point in living’ without Maria, maybe the staff are aiming for one of the bleakest endings in recent anime history.
Maria hasn’t been the most likable character throughout the series but her decision to disconnect the train to save Canaan and sacrifice herself, imo, is redeeming.
So, if they kill Maria or they somehow separate her from Canaan permanently then the show is complete ‘fail’.
*crosses fingers for next week*
yawnfest!!especially alphards motivations ZZZzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzz. . . the ep would have at least left a smile on my fce if the woulda blown maria sky high at the end, but..
I think it all just comes down to Alphard wanting to prove that she’s stronger than Canaan, but the show makes everything more complicated than need be.
me goggles were steaming watching this episode :3
As everyone else yuri goggles! Damn, this series is seriously delivering more fuel for us!
Nice episode, the action scene was pretty awesome and yeah alphard was awesome too
couple of things though, i heard they are making a movie for this anime if im not mistaken, can someone clarify it?
thanks and cant wait for the last episode to come out
oh wait scratch that, its 3 movies thats of the anime series, so yeah no sequel at the moment
mann maybe they should NOT do the 3 movies based on the anime series and give us a second season….-_-
they left out the scene where maria slept at (with) canaan’s.
:<
For a villain, Alphard is quite nice person – and hot chick when undressed:P
LOL-ed @ “small hotel-lets share bed” pickup line of Maria. Offscreen yuri was hinted without any official romance:P (I winder how it looked in the game?)
I dont like the idea of Maria dying, she is becoming finally more decisive.
ARG, this is why i hated Geass so much, these cliffhangers…
At first i thought she didn’t shoot her, just shot the side of the train cabin, but no she shot her. Then the bomb, eeek, and if they are linking both the fight with Alphrad and Canaan at the same time as the bomb going off, 30 seconds left is not enough time to go to that train cabin, especially with it being disconnected by yu-yu… I am wondering if there will be a 2nd seaons and they might end it here like this, her dying.. Honestly, i would give the writers credit and alot of guts for doing so.. But of course Canaan is superhuman, so lets go with that she somehow figures out a way to save her..
I think Alphard’s motivation for killing Canaan is more along the lines of an Electra Complex. She basically got replaced by Canaan in the eyes of the man who fathered her, so there are some serious abandonment issues going on. As you suggest, Siam is very much responsible for Alphard’s issues.
After she killed Siam she tried to reassure herself that she became the ideal soldier Siam had sought, and that the guy simply had lost his way when he changed his mind and raised Canaan to let go of hatred. I think she subconsciously feels very guilty for killing him, which is why she’s obsessed with killing Canaan to erase Siam’s ghost which keeps following her around and haunting her. Canaan is Siam’s legacy, and he lives on in her.
Like TJ says, I think Alphard wanted to put Maria in a life-and-death situation to inspire Canaan to fight her very hardest, in order to prove once and for all that she’s superior to her. If she killed Canaan when she wasn’t fighting at full potential, like in the previous bathroom fight, it would defeat the purpose of proving her superiority over her.
Anyway, great episode. I hope they don’t Gainax the ending. That will mess up my mood for weeks.
i think i have to watch the series one more time, i still very confused with the story…the anime is somber enough, if Maria die, i dun think i will keep watching, depressed…
I agree that the fight was a lot of fun to watch. I liked the time bomb cliffhanger as well. Very cliche, but it’s cliche for a reason; it’s a classic. It reminded me a lot of Death Note’s penultimate episode.
I can’t imagine anything other than a happy ending to this show, so I’m sure Canaan and Maria will pull something out. And while I do like Alphard’s character a lot (Maaya Sakamoto has a lot to do with this, I figure), I don’t think she’s really all that complex. She idolizes Siam (and why not? He saved her, and beyond that, it’s natural for any girl to look up to a father figure), hates him for rejecting her in favor of Canaan, and wants to both take revenge on Canaan and wants to see the power that Siam spoke of. She’s ultimately just a villain driven to revenge who can’t let go of her past.
I agree that the fight was a lot of fun to watch. I liked the time bomb cliffhanger as well. Very cliche, but it’s cliche for a reason; it’s a classic. It reminded me a lot of Death Note’s penultimate episode.
I can’t imagine anything other than a happy ending to this show, so I’m sure Canaan and Maria will pull something out. And while I do like Alphard’s character a lot (Maaya Sakamoto has a lot to do with this, I figure), I don’t think she’s really all that complex. She idolizes Siam (and why not? He saved her, and beyond that, it’s natural for any girl to look up to a father figure), hates him for rejecting her in favor of Canaan, and wants to both take revenge on Canaan and wants to see the power that Siam spoke of.
So while her backstory might certainly deserve some sympathy, she’s ultimately just a villain driven to revenge who can’t let go of her past.
Dude this is a type moon story… One of the main characters is getting pwned. Its always the same and since its usually a blonde chick getting pwned its gonna be maria. If im right this whole season was a fail.
Thank God Maria will die.
Yeah, but it’s not a hentai story like Tsukihime or Fate/Stay Night. It’s a lot more like Kara no Kyoukai (which, to be fair, was essentially a hentai story without the porn), Show Spoiler ▼